Catholic Doctrine and Judaism – Prof. Gavin D'Costa

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Catholic, Society & Culture, Philosophy, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholicism, Thomism, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 873 Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2026

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

Prof. Gavin D’Costa explains how, since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has rethought its relationship to Judaism by affirming the enduring validity of God’s covenant with the Jewish people, recovering the Church’s identity as a fundamentally Jewish–Gentile reality, and opening unresolved but fertile questions about mission, ecclesiology, and antisemitism.

This lecture was given on October 9th, 2025, at University of Edinburgh.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Gavin D’Costa is Professor of Catholic-Jewish Relations at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas, Rome; and Emeritus Professor of Catholic Theology at the University of Bristol. He is author of seven books, most recently: Christianity and the World Religions. Disputed Questions in the Theology of Religions, (2009); Vatican II and the World Religions, (OUP, 2014) and Catholic Doctrines on the Jewish People after Vatican II, (OUP, 2019) He is an advisor to the Vatican, the Roman Catholic Bishops in England and Wales, and to the Church of England, Board of Mission on matters related to other religions. He is a published poet and worked on musical poetry with composer John Pickard and has two discs.

Keywords: Antisemitism, Covenant, Hebrew Catholics, Interfaith Dialogue, Lumen Gentium 16, Nostra Aetate 4, Post‑Conciliar Judaism, Rabbinic Judaism, Supersessionism, Vatican II and the Jews

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tumistic Institute podcast.
0:05.9	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:12.2	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Tumistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:18.2	To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at
0:21.6	to mystic institute.org.
0:23.6	So I went to a talk recently actually, and when I got home, my wife said, so what did
0:29.6	you get out of it? And I was kind of thinking. And I wasn't really sure. So I sort of thought, right, okay, next time I do a talk, I don't really sure.
0:45.2	So I sort of thought, right, okay, next time I do a talk, I don't want people to go away thinking, what did I get out of it?
0:59.7	Okay, so my three goals, my achievement, if this is successful, is one, you will get a sense of how the Catholic Church in relationship to Jews is entering a very profound and new period of its thinking. So there's point number one is the relationship
1:09.0	to Jews. But point number two, and this to Jews but point number two and this is
1:12.2	fascinating it's also the relationship to the church's self the discovery of the
1:22.4	meaning of the church because of it being and I'm going to put this shockingly, I will be arguing
1:31.5	that the church is no other than a Jewish messianic sect, which then makes room for the Gentiles
1:42.4	to come in.
1:47.0	And that's quite an astounding, earth-shattering moment.
1:51.0	I think when I started thinking about it like that, I thought,
1:55.0	gosh, what about all my normal ecclesiology in training?
1:59.0	So that's the second point. And the third point,
2:01.6	and this is really genuine, if you're doing theology and you're thinking, oh, I'd like to do some research,
2:08.6	this is the field to choose because so much is unsettled and unclear, Because really the beginning of its 1960s, and now we're celebrating the 60th anniversary of
2:26.3	the big document on the Jewish people this year.
2:30.3	And it is amazing. There are just so many questions that are unresolved that need bright, brilliant Catholic
	...

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